Sales of industrial robots set an all-time record in 2013, with more than 179,000 sold worldwide, according to the International Federation of Robotics. It was a 12% increase over the previous year.
Part of the reason for this double-digit annual growth was the increased use of industrial robots in Asia. About one in five robots sold last year went to China, IFR President Arturo Baroncelli said during a presentation at the AUTOMATICA conference held earlier this year in Munich, Germany.
China represents the world’s biggest robot market based on annual sales. It’s also the fastest growing market worldwide. Nearly 37,000 industrial robots were sold in China last year. Only about 9,000 of these coming from Chinese robot suppliers, with foreign robot suppliers increasing their sales there by 20%.
Between 2008 and 2013, the total supply of industrial robots increased a whopping 36% per year in China. Last year, 20% of all robots sold globally went to China.
Baroncelli said he expects the boom in industrial robotics to be sustained at least through next year.
“Incoming orders in the first four months of 2014 increased remarkably and requests from all customer industries are on the rise,” Barncelli said in a news release. “Therefore, we expect that in 2014 growth of unit sales will continue with the same pace like in 2013.”